Communications regulator Ofcom has received 80 complaints from The X Factor viewers claiming they were unable to vote for their favourite contestant during Saturday night's final.

Many fans of the ITV1 show have reported being unable to cast a vote for Rhydian Roberts, the pre-show favourite who ended up coming second to Leon Jackson.

"I must have tried calling in about 50 to 100 times by hitting the redial button to vote for Rhydian - but I didn't get through once," wrote one disgruntled viewer on The X Factor website's talk board.

Radio stations in Rhydian's native Wales said they had been inundated with calls from angry fans.

"This is not Wales being bad losers - we are as magnanimous in defeat as we are in victory - but we do believe there was a gross miscarriage on Saturday," said Real Radio DJ Chris Moore.

"The only people that can clear this matter up are ITV and The X Factor. Now it's time for them to stand up and be counted."

And one Welsh radio company has decided to boycott Leon's single in protest at Rhydian's defeat.

"Our radio station presenters have been inundated with calls suggesting that during Saturday's X Factor their votes for Welsh favourite Rhydian supported by local Neath diva Katherine Jenkins were not able to be counted as lines were jammed," said Gareth Davies, the programme manager at Town and Country Broadcasting.

"As a result, until justice is done, we've decided not to play the winner's single on our group of stations: Bridge FM, Swansea Bay Radio, Radio Carmarthenshire, Radio Pembrokeshire and Scarlet FM."

A spokeswoman for Ofcom said the regulator would be looking into the complaints it had received.

The show's producer, TalkbackThames, said some Virgin Media cable TV customers had experienced problems getting through because of high call volumes.

But there was no bias in the system against Rhydian, the company said.

"Phone lines were monitored throughout the night and there were no issues on voting lines," the company said in a statement.

"We do get a huge surge of calls and depending on phone operators some callers may have experienced an engaged tone or network busy message and therefore may have to call back, but these calls should not be charged.

"As all numbers go through to the same lines and vote platform it is impossible for there to be any bias in favour or against a particular contestant."

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